Chris Jones says it wasn’t one particular incident that led to releasing Duron Carter

Chris Jones says the Saskatchewan Roughriders made the call to release Duron Carter during the bye week and there was not one particular incident that led to the final decision.

“Over the break, we’re always constantly evaluating our roster, our team and the way we do things, processes and coaching and things what we do at practice. So upon that evaluation, I made the decision that we were going to go in a different direction from Duron. Made the decision, actually went back and forth in my mind, yesterday about halftime of the game [Alouettes and Redblacks] decided to go ahead and call him and alert him that was the direction that we were going,” Jones said.

“I’m not going to go into any kind of specifics or anything like that, we’re not here to put a guy on trial. We released a very good player. He’s going to land on his feet. But we decided to go in a different direction for our football team. It wasn’t any one particular deal, it was time for us to go in a different direction.”

Jones and Carter held meetings each day for the entire 2017 season, but that changed in 2018.

“This year we did not have daily meetings. We did that last year and it worked good. But guys get older, they mature, and stand on their own two feet,” Jones said.

“I wanted to treat Duron as a mature football player. The decision we made this year was to not meet every day. We had meetings periodically but it wasn’t on an everyday basis.”

Carter made eight receptions for 111 yards in seven games on the season while recording 13 tackles and an interception return for a touchdown plus one knockdown as a defensive back before Saskatchewan cut him late Saturday night.

“Professional football is a business, it didn’t seem to surprise him when I had the conversation with him yesterday. That’s about all I’d like to comment on it,” Jones said.

“He’s a very good receiver. He’s a dynamic guy that has a unique set of qualities, but at the same time, we do have a very young roster at the receiver position with the exception of Naaman. We have some very capable guys that we believe in.”